Difficulties with platforms delay CitiFirst fund launch

CitiFirst has delayed the launch of its new Ucits III openended fund by a month and has halved the minimum investment.

The company has postponed the launch from March 1 to April 7 and has cut the minimum investment for the fund from £10,000 to £5,000, citing the difficulty of getting on some bigger platforms such as Cofunds, Skandia and Fidelity FundsNetwork for the delay.

She says: “We could have gone ahead and launched. We needed £20m to launch efficiently and we are over that mark but we are doing thisto support the IFAs. The more you have in the fund, the better the terms.

“IFAs said that they would really like to get both tax years, which is something we overlooked. More important, we just could not get the majorplatforms on board.

“We have quite a few orders waiting with Cofunds and FundsNetwork so we are giving it another month and are hoping we will be on there.”

Cofunds, Fidelity and Skandia say that the process of adding new funds and products is driven by adviser demand.

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